In November 1967, four years after President Kennedy’s assassination, LIFE magazine published an article titled, simply, “Nov. 22, 1963, Dallas: Photos by Nine Bystanders.” While the home movie shot by Abraham Zapruder was already, by then, the most famous—and controversial—visual record of the day, the article in LIFE included a number of pictures that had never been published before.

“The FBI has seen almost all of photos,” LIFE told its readers, “and found nothing that would furnish clues to the assassination itself.”

Here, on the 50th anniversary of the day the Warren Report’s official findings about JFK’s murder were delivered to President Johnson, LIFE.com once again shines a light on those magazine pages—and on the photographs, made by nine amateur photographers, that even today feel chilling and, somehow, meaningful. If we could just look long enough, or closely enough, the pictures suggest, perhaps something about that November day would finally make sense.

(Note: For the best experience when viewing the slides above, use the “Full Screen” option to the right of the caption.)